Marseilles (AFP)

Broken taps, leaking roofs, lack of staff: in many Marseille schools, teams are trying to solve practical problems, without waiting for the announcements of Emmanuel Macron, visiting the second largest city in France.

In a nursery school in a popular district, the headmistress, Stéphanie * (loan name), remembers her arrival in Marseille in 2004: "Coming from the Paris region, I was shocked, now I got used to it. ... "

From the morning of the start of the school year, the problems accumulate in Stéphanie's establishment, classified Rep + (priority education network): "trickles of water" flow from the taps and two regional agents specializing in nursery schools (Atsem) are missing because they were sent to another school for a replacement.

The eight-class building with its chaotic architecture is punctuated by tiny shadowless playgrounds, and regularly visited by rats.

"We have moldy paintings in places, and especially classes in prefabricated buildings for eight years," with big insulation problems ", while it must have been temporary," laments the director.

- 35 degrees in the classes -

Further north of the city, at the Bouge school, visited by Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, the same insulation problem because of the metal structure: "It is 35 degrees some days in summer. And in winter, we come in class with the jackets, ”describes a teacher to the president.

President Emmanuel Macron visits a nursery school in Marseille, September 2, 2021 Daniel Cole POOL / AFP

The visit of the Head of State and his expected announcements of a substantial envelope for Marseille schools, "is inevitably a victory for us, we finally share our observation," said Sébastien Fournier, deputy departmental secretary of the Snuipp teachers' union.

"But it should not be announcements of a candidate president, it takes a strong commitment," warns the union representative.

He advocates "a structural reform to ensure the maintenance of the building".

"No way we put a billion and then realize in ten years that nothing has been done," he insists.

For Snuipp, in addition to the building, "a disaster, a disgrace", it is also necessary to act on the municipal staff.

With a supervision rate of one agent for 55 children in elementary school and one for 30 in nursery school, Marseille must "recruit urgently", according to Mr. Fournier.

Thursday noon, in her school, Stéphanie found that there were only "two agents for sixty children, very young children who do not always know how to eat on their own".

She also deplores that, unlike Paris, "in Marseille we do not have help from the town hall for school outings, nothing, even less discovery classes".

Despite everything, she admits, "relations with the town hall have improved a lot" since the change of municipality in July 2020. "School officials come to school councils, they are also more responsive for the work," says the director.

Out of 470 schools, the left-wing town hall, which had voted for an emergency envelope of 30 million when it arrived in July 2020, took advantage of the summer to renovate roofs, classrooms and toilets in 208 establishments.

Emmanuel Macron visiting a nursery school in Marseille, September 2, 2021 Daniel Cole POOL / AFP

"This year, we have tripled the budget devoted to school maintenance work, from 7.5 to 21 million. And we are launching the first construction or renovation projects, involving 18 schools in the city," a detailed Benoît Payan in the press kit.

It also intends to tackle road safety with ten schools which will test pedestrian facilities and markings on the ground.

In front of the Bouge school, Amel Fettah, president of a parents' association, is pleased to have obtained "a red light and a handful of barriers" to secure the passage of children.

Asked about the future of this school, the town hall gives 2024 as the horizon of renovation.

“Imagine that my oldest son has just returned to university, can you imagine how many years we've been fighting here?” Ms. Fettah says.

© 2021 AFP